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| My brother Stephen, lawyering by candlelight, with aircard |
How It’s New York: We were the landfall of Hurricane Irene, although it got downgraded to Tropical Storm before it hit.
How It’s Irish: apart from the fact that it affected the Irish here as much as everybody else, it isn’t– BUT it did bring back memories of a hard winter last year without water in Ireland (part. Cork) due to the freeze.
Hey all– well I’m on Day 6 of no power in my home in Millburn, New Jersey, and typing this from the library, which is unususlly full of people charging phones and working on laptops. The new books table today is full of paperwork on how New Jersey is officially a disaster area, and we are eligible for FEMA. Fortunately we have a gas stove and have had hot water, but it does get dark at night.
On top of that, I had hand surgery last Thursday– I have had rheumatoid arthritis since age 14. This tim I had two replacement joints that had broken replaced, and some nodules on a tendon snipped. So the option of fiddling tunes to amuse myself isn’t even there!
So between the surgery (anesthesia and percoset are slooooooow to leave my 5’3″ body, for some reson) and the lack of power, we’ve had no blog updates (though some twitter posts!) in awhile.
But I’ll get up what I can today! The library’s closed for Labor Day weekend, so if we don’t get power back it’ll be another while, but keep sending news and updates! We’re here, it’s just dark!
Below are some photos and an excerpt from the Baristanet article by Debbie Galant that I contributed to last Tuesday– and after the jump some amazing youtube of the flood in Millburn!
The Irene Disruption: Day 4
I write this from the Millburn library, which has wifi and power, because in South Mountain we still don’t have power. It’s Day 3, and the town says it will be Sunday or Monday for some people. The town looks messy, as we all brought our garbage to the curb, but they only picked up the kitchen garbage. They will be picking up the wet garbage and debris but cannot say when, so we’re to bring it out and have it ready.
Empty candle aisle at Target. Photo by Stephen OrelMy brother came down from the city Friday night and could not go back until this morning, Tuesday. This picture of him working on a laptop and aircard, by candlelight, says it all. It’s Victorian, but not. I also like this picture of us huddled in the living room, with cat.At Target there has been a run on candles and batteries. And cars happily just drive right around police barricades. A few big oaks came down, one on Undercliff, one on South Mountain. But most stayed safe, and I hope they do not use this as an attempt to cut our trees down again.
We had water in the basement but that was it. Our trees are fine. The cover blew off our grill, but the lawn chairs didn’t even topple.
